Smoking articles with tube-shaped sleeves are generally known as cigars, cigarillos and cigarettes. Cigars generally consist of a tobacco filler material, a surrounding wrapper holding the tobacco filler material together and an exterior cover or wrapper. Generally, machined-manufacture cigars and cigarette are distinguished from hand rolled. Machine manufactured are generally referred to as cigarillos and short cigars and can be produced continuously as strands and cut to length. Cigarettes generally consist of fine tobacco cuttings in a tube-shaped paper sleeve.
Apart from machine manufactured cigarettes, cigarette tobaccos and cigarette papers are available for the smoker to roll his own cigarettes by hand and in some cases with the aid of simple assisting devices. By this means the smoker rolls a portion of the cigarette tobacco in a rectangular cigarette paper and then glues the paper along its lengthwise edge. For such products a long-standing and important question is whether the self-rolled cigarettes provide the individual with smoking pleasure comparable to the ready-made cigarettes in packages and also do they offer considerable price value?
Generally, “hand rolled” items are produced using individual rolling sheets and filler material. Conventionally, rolling sheets or cigarette rolling papers are made from thin, tissue-like paper having a rectangular shape with sides of between one and four inches in length, and usually between 2.5 to 3.5 inches in length. Rolling sheets can also be made from tobacco leaves and/or homogenized tobacco paper.
When using such conventionally shaped cigarette rolling paper to make or roll a cigarette by hand, the paper is first folded, bent or held in somewhat of a V-shape or U-shape with one of the sides of the “V” or “U” being longer than the other. An amount of smoking filler material, such as tobacco or the like, is distributed substantially over the entire length of the rolling paper in the bottom of the V- or U-shaped pouch formed by the rolling paper. The longer portion of the rolling paper, being free of any of the smoking material, is then bent or rolled over the portion of the rolling paper covered with the tobacco and is rolled over upon itself to form a substantially cylindrical shape. The longer end of the rolling paper is wrapped around itself as far as possible and overlaps an underlying layer to form part of the wall of the cylinder.
The rolling process, when performed by hand, requires a keen eye, a steady hand, and a high degree of finger digital dexterity, since the rolling paper is not very large compared to a human hand and fingers, because the particles of smoking filler materials tend to roll or slide off the small rolling paper, and because the rolling paper itself is very thin and easily ripped or torn. A critical step of rolling a cigar or cigarette by hand is using fingers to both form the “V” or “U” shaped pouch for the smoking material, and to roll the longer portion of the rolling paper around itself. During the process of rolling the longer portion of the paper around itself, the user depends on the trapped smoking material to provide the generally cylindrical shape to guide placement of the longer portion around itself to produce a generally cylindrical cigarette.
Oftentimes, however, the use of smoking filler material to guide placement of the longer portion around itself does not aid in producing a cylinder due to either poor distribution of smoking material along the V- or U-shaped pouch, causing the longer portion to be rolled too tight or too loose around itself, with respect to the majority portion of the smoking material, or due simply to the user's inability to correctly manipulate or spiral the cigarette rolling paper around itself between their fingers. The result of either of these situations can be an unsmokable cigar or cigarette or one that falls apart or is torn.
Cigarettes and cigars that are rolled using conventional rolling sheets generally do not permit complete use of the smoking material disposed within because the cigarette and cigar can only be smoked until the lit end approaches the user's fingers or lips during holding or smoking, the cigarette must be dispensed, and at which time a user's fingers or lips may be burned.
It is, therefore, desirable that a rolling sheet be constructed in a manner that assists the user in rolling a cigarette or cigar by hand. It is desirable that the cigarette rolling paper be constructed in a manner that prevents smoking material from being drawn from the cigarette into a smoker's mouth. It is also desirable that the cigarette rolling paper be constructed in a manner that permits the entire smoking material to be smoked without the risk of burned fingers or burned lips. It is further desirable that the cigarette rolling paper be constructed from conventional materials using conventional techniques.
The present invention relates to prepared materials for an article for smoking which is hand rolled by the smoker and includes a sleeve section rolled into a tube-shaped sleeve and a filler made of tobacco.
The following U.S. Patents are incorporated herein by reference: U.S. Pat. No. 6,526,986.
While certain novel features of this invention shown and described below are pointed out in the annexed claims, the invention is not intended to be limited to the details specified, since a person of ordinary skill in the relevant art will understand that various omissions, modifications, substitutions and changes in the forms and details of the device illustrated and in its operation may be made without departing in any way from the spirit of the present invention. No feature of the invention is critical or essential unless it is expressly stated as being “critical” or “essential.”